Just a bunch of little things

Howdy!  Spring!  Spring is here!  The sunshine and warm(er) temps feel SO GOOD after this lousy, cold winter.  I'm hearing rumors of a 70'F+ day on Sunday.  Already promised Punk a trip to the park and maybe a stop at Dairy Queen for a soft serve cone.

I've been getting some things done in the sewing room.  No, not cleaning.  That can wait until after Easter.  Truly?  I think I will be putting off the clean and re-organize the sewing room for months and months.  It is just a chore I don't want to do but then again, who does?  My machine does have to go in for a cleaning and service.  We are headed out of town for a few days soon and while I'm gone, my sewing machine will be headed out for some spa treatments.  I've been fighting lately with my walking foot and/or the dual feed on my machine.  I'm really pushing/pulling some of my projects when I'm sewing.  My machine isn't happy right now.

Onto what I've been working on.  Michele posted her Lollipop bag and I thought it was just too cute.  I haven't made one for myself yet but I made 3 for little Easter gifts.  I left off the rosette since I knew it would give me fits and I wasn't in the mood.  LOL.

I'm trying to get away from baskets full of candy for those that I give Easter gifts to.  I'm trying but it's hard not to load up kids with candy.  LOL.  I also don't care for the little $1.00 trinkets out there.  I end up throwing all those out.  They just clutter up the house.  With that said, I made the smaller size of the Lollipop bag for Amelia, my God daughter, and my cousin's daughter.  They can load them up with pencils or whatever.  A small bag of candy with the bag and I'm good to go.

I plan on making the larger one for myself.  It will be good to have in the backpack with band-aids, ibuprofen, and other smaller items in our upcoming trip to Disney this summer.

I found a tablerunner online using the Charming Stars tutorial on MBS and I shamefully copied it.  My fabrics are slightly different but not by much.  Everything was stash for this one.  I'm pretty proud of myself for digging in the stash first.  I'm getting pretty good at it too.  :)

Last up for now, I made a wall hanging for my God son using the Spell it with Fabric blog hop that Moda did a couple of months ago.  I made letter pillows for his big brother when he was born but I wanted something different for Jimmy.  While Jimmy is still a little guy, I used more sophisticated fabrics for him.  I just didn't want a baby look for his letters. I hope my cousin likes it.

One of these days I will make myself a whole alphabet quilt.  The letters were fun.

Enjoy your day!
Jen :)

National Champs!

I don't follow sports but for both the Men and Women UCONN basketball teams to bring the championships home... makes me proud!

Jen  :)

Who are the People in Your Neighborhood?

Who remembers this little ditty from Sesame Street?

One of my favorites.  Amelia wasn't a big Sesame Street fan.  I just didn't like the new-ness of it so I never turned her on to it.  I loved the version I grew up on; she wasn't an Elmo fan at all.

Every time I look at my newest project finish, People in your Neighborhood skit from Sesame Street runs through my head.

Dwell from Camille's book "Simple Retro".  Happy to actually make something out of the many quilt books I have collected.

I had intended to make only a small wall hanging size but I enjoyed the house construction so much, I kept going and made all 16 blocks.  The top is finished as the pattern was written but I'm going to add a wider outer border.

I used a mix of Bonnie & Camille fabrics in this one: Ruby, Vintage Modern, Marmalade, Happy Go Lucky, and Scrumptious.  I have decided that Scrumptious is my favorite.  The colors make me smile.  There's a citrus-y undertone to them to make them nice and bright.  Right up my alley.  I'm hoarding the rest of my Scrumptious stash for right now.  The white flowered house in the upper left corner of the quilt is going to be the wider border.

I was on a major sewing kick but that has slowed down some.  I'm working on a Schnibbles and it's coming along but I'm getting bored with the process.  I have a wall hanging I need to quilt.  Once I get that done, I will post it.  I hope to get it quilted this weekend.

Enjoy your day!
Jen :)

I need an intervention or a good organizer

The current state of my sewing room.  In pictures.

There's about 4 projects going on at the same time over here.  Even have a list posted to my table.

My stash that sits behind me when I'm cutting or what I stare at when I'm sewing.  Oh the horror.  It's no wonder I can't find anything.  To be fair, it wasn't THIS bad to begin with.  I started to get my fabrics separated by color families.  I had done it once before but fell out of practice.  I picked that task up again but then I started cutting strings for my string blocks and well, this is what I have now.

Just another view.

More projects in the works.  I need to get back to them.  There are some quilt blocks hiding in that pile.

More stash.  On these shelves are my favorite fabrics.  Easy to find.

My ironing station and the place where things go that need to be fixed.  Like a pocket in a pair of jeans, a button on a pillow and a ripped stuffed toy.  Just so you know, all three of those things have been sitting there for about a year.

I have been in the sewing groove and have been ignoring the state of my sewing room.  I think it's high time to take a big pause and get to organizing myself.  Anybody want to come do it for me?!  :)

I have a plan.  I'm just waiting for a free weekend to implement it.  I'm going to clear the entire room out (not the furniture) and put it all back nice and organized like.  I'm just afraid it's going to take me much longer than a weekend to get it done.  

:)

Enjoy your day!

Jen 

I had enough time, I made two!

Sherri and Sinta have been hosting AYOS for 2 years I believe and I finally decided to join in the fun.  I don't know why I waiting so long to play along.  Timing was right, I suppose.  I had purchased a couple of Carrie's new Schnibbles patterns back in November and I have a bunch of charm packs to choose from.

My first submission for the "Another Year of Schnibbles" parade is Bungalow using Noteworthy charm packs.

That's not all!  I finished Bungalow mid month, I had enough time to make a second Schnibbles!  I dug out Carrie's Book "Another Bite of Schnibbles" and some Hometown charms that I had hanging around and got to work.

This one is Reveille.  What I am happy about: I used a book that has been sitting on my shelf forever AND charm packs that have been collecting dust.

This one is a bit yellow heavy.  I had 3 charm packs of Hometown but only 1 full one.  I must have borrowed some charms; I don't know for what and I had a lot of yellow hanging around.  I like it.  It is going to make a nice wall hanging for my living room this Fall.  It's a nice companion to my Full House Schnibbles out of Reunion charms.

I ordered some fat quarters for another project I'm working on. I hope to show you some progress on that one soon.  It's cute.

Can't wait to see which Schnibbles pattern is for March.  I have some charm packs lined up for the project if I like the pattern that is chosen.  :)

Enjoy your day!
Jen  :)

Finally. A quilt for my husband

My husband has been feeling neglected in the quilt department.  He was whining that he didn't have one.  I wanted to make him one for Christmas but the same song and dance.  I ran out of time.  His birthday is in April so I pushed his quilt back until then.

It's so hard picking fabrics for a man.  Everything is just too girly sometimes.  I wanted something quick with little cutting and piecing together.  I picked up a Bali Pop of batiks blue and decided on a quick rail fence block.  Strip piecing.  Good to go.  I still want to make a black/white/gray check quilt like Anna's.  It was in the running for my husband for this birthday but I changed my mind.  Good thing is that there are plenty of Christmases, birthdays and other gift-giving occasions in my future for him.

This is where I am with this quilt so far.  Don't look at it too closely because there is one area in the quilt with the same block... multiple times.  I must have been sleeping when I was laying it out and didn't notice.

It's too short.  It's a 8x9 layout and it's just right for me but will be too short for my husband.  I'm thinking borders.  My other option is to get another Bali Pop and make 2 more rows but I don't know if I want to spent $40.00 for a few more rows.  I can always use the rest of the Bali Pop as a scrappy binding.

Decisions, decisions.

Enjoy your day!
Jen  :)

More Strings

Hello All!  How is everyone on this snowy Tuesday?  Well, it's snowing at my house again.  Can I say I'm tired of all this snow?!  We're expecting another 3-6 inches of this dreaded white stuff.  Thankfully, Amelia is on a winter break for school so today doesn't count against her.

I have been keeping up with my sewing.  My personal goal was to have 12 additional string blocks done by the end of February and I'm happy to say, I made my goal.  24 string blocks done.

I need to dig through my stash a little more.  I have a bunch of strings cut but I'm tired of the repeats so time to expand further into the stash.  I will say that my sewing room is a disaster.  Bins of fabrics all over.  Fabrics thrown willy-nilly back on the shelf.  But I am so focused on the sewing, I'm ignoring the rest of the room.

My next goal with this project is to have 16-20 (24 would be nice) more blocks completed by the end of April.  Ultimate end is 36 blocks. I think that would make for a nice sized lap quilt.

LOL!  If Jen knew how to add!!  If 36 is my ultimate goal, I only need 12 more blocks.  DUH!  40 blocks wouldn't be bad either.

Enjoy your day!!
Jen :)